“That I May Live”

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 81, 6 April 1938, Page 11

“That I May Live”

EXULTING ROMANCE ENRICHES DRAMA

(Mayfair: Screening Saturday.) A love s,o steadfast that your heart infuses with a warm glow during the exciting events of “That I May Live," the Twentieth Cen-tury-Fox production feaciring Rochelle Hudson, Robert Kent and J. Edward Bromberg.

A dramatic romance of young love menaced by the shadow of prison walls, the film tells the deeply moving tale of a youthful couple who cling defiantly and desperately to their love, fighting bravely and gloriously for the happiness which they have earned. While "That I May Live" is primarily a piece of deft and tenderly human entertainment, it nevertheless poses some thought-provoking questions about the future of young men released from prison. Suppose they have genuinely reformed? What chance then have they for life, liberty and the pursiut of happiness Does society permit a onetime loser ever to wrest victory from life after the prison stamp has been placed on him? (.'an he do it alone? If he needs help, where can he find it?

Robert Kent, who plays such a young man in the film, is shown upon his emergence from prison, when three gangsters force him to join them in a robbery. A watchman is killed and the gangsters knock out Kent, leaving the death gun beside him. Recognised as an ex-convict and threatened with the gallows, he jumps desperately at an opportunity to escape. Broke and hungry, he attempts to hold up a small restaurant, but the waitress-cashier, Rochelle Hudson, talks him out of it, gives him a meal and gets him a job washing dishes. They fall in We, and the jealous proprietor, in a drunken rage, fires them both. A travelling pedler, J. Edward Bromberg, gives them a lift in his trailer and helps them to get married, and the three of them then set to work to find some plan by which the real murderers I can be apprehended so that Kent can again take his place in society as a free man. Events move thrillingly along this line toward an exciting climax. Allan Dwan directed "That I May Live," from a screen play by Ben Markson and William Conselman. Sol M. Wurtzel was executive producer.